ABC News reports:
Democratic House candidates lead Republicans 52-44 percent among likely voters in this final ABC News/Washington Post pre-election poll. The Democrats’ lead has closed from 14 percentage points in August and 13 points in October to now 8 points.
The GOP has seen some shoring in its base, including non-college white men and rural residents, as well as among independent women. At the same time, vote intention remains high in typically low-turnout Democratic groups, including young voters, nonwhites, liberals, Democrats and those who lean toward the party.
With Trump pushing to turn out his core support groups, the election stands more than ever as a referendum on his presidency. That’s not ideal for the Republicans: Trump’s 40 percent approval rating is the lowest for a president ahead of his first midterm elections besides Harry Truman’s in 1946.
Over the final 48 hours here, we should see most of the big traditional news organizations issue their final pre-midterm surveys; here’s the one from my colleagues at @ABC (done in conjunction with the Washington Post, as usual). https://t.co/OELxkK9LJo
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 4, 2018
These polls are probably the last thing that could really influence our *overall* forecast, if there’s evidence of a shift in the generic ballot. Recently, those polls have been clustering in the D+6 to D+10 range, and that’s right where ABC has it (D+8) among likely voters.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 4, 2018
These traditional polls are generally very high-quality data, although note that they’re not able to detect truly last-minute movement—a poll released today will have been in the field late last week.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 4, 2018